State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco is shown before a news conference in Sacramento, California, last month. San Francisco is overturning a city-funded travel ban for 30 states that it says restricts abortion, voting and LGBTQ rights after determining the boycott is doing more harm than good. Wiener, who authored the original ban, agreed that the measure had not produced the intended results.
Mr. Pedroncelli/AP
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State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco is shown before a news conference in Sacramento, California, last month. San Francisco is overturning a city-funded travel ban for 30 states that it says restricts abortion, voting and LGBTQ rights after determining the boycott is doing more harm than good. Wiener, who authored the original ban, agreed that the measure had not produced the intended results.
Mr. Pedroncelli/AP
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco is overturning a city-funded travel ban for 30 states that it says restricts abortion, voting and LGBTQ rights after determining the boycott is doing more harm than good.
The Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 on Tuesday to repeal a section of the city’s administrative code that prohibits staff from visiting and city departments from contracting with companies headquartered in the states , which include Texas, Florida and Ohio.
California, meanwhile, is considering the revocation of similar law.
The town supervisors will hold a second and final vote next Tuesday. Mayor London Breed is expected to sign the measure.
The progressive city passed the boycott in 2016, after the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. At first, the boycott applied only to states that considered the rights of LGBTQ people restricted. Later, the list was expanded to include states that limit access to voting and abortion.
The idea was to put economic pressure on those conservative states. Instead, a report issued last month by the city administrator concluded that the policy was raising costs and administrative burdens for the city. Due to restrictions, there were fewer bidders for city work and that the end of the boycott could reduce contract costs by 20% annually, the report concluded.
In addition, the city had approved hundreds of waivers and waivers for about $800 million in contracts, the report said.
Meanwhile, “no state with restrictive LGBTQ rights, voting rights, or abortion policies cited travel bans and city contracts as motivation for reforming their law,” concluded ir -revision.
The measure “was a well-intentioned effort at values-based contracting but ultimately did not accomplish the social change it sought to accomplish,” Board President Aaron Peskin, who co-sponsored, said in a statement. the revocation. “Instead, this onerous restriction led to an uncompetitive bidding climate and created serious obstacles for everything from access to emergency housing to being able to cost-effectively purchase the best products and contracts for the City.”
Scott Wiener, a former supervisor turned state senator who authored the original ban, agreed that the measure had not produced the intended results.
“We believed that a coalition of cities and states would form to create real consequences for the states that pass these hateful and hateful laws,” said the San Francisco Democrat in a statement. “However, as it turned out, that coalition never formed, and the full potential impact of this policy never materialized. Instead, San Francisco is now penalizing businesses in other states — including LGBTQ-owned, women-owned , and people of color – owned businesses – for the sins of their radical right-wing governments.”
In addition, city staff could not fly to many states for cooperative work on issues ranging from HIV prevention to transportation, Wiener said.
Similar problems have led California to consider ending its 2016 ban on state travel to states it deems to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
California now bans state-funded travel for nearly half the country after a surge in anti-LGBTQ legislation in mostly Republican-led states.
The ban means that sports teams at public colleges and universities have had to find other ways to pay for road games in states like Arizona and Utah. And it complicated some of the state’s other policy goals, such as using state money to pay for people who live in other states to travel to California for abortions.
Last month, state Senate leader Toni Atkins announced legislation that would end the ban and replace it with an advertising campaign in those states that promotes community acceptance and inclusion. LGBTQ. The bill would establish a fund to pay for the campaign, which would accept private donations and state funding – if available.
